“I was the guy 10 to 15 years ago who said, ‘No way, never, no how’ would I ever to that,” Dale Kepner said as he stood in the shadow of the expansion of his dairy operation. Kepner considers himself a farmer who would always milk his cows in a stanchion barn.

Kepner, 46, said, “Father Time started creeping up on me a little bit. It was a pain feeding the cows with a feed cart and a fork and bending over milking. My back hurt a lot.”

He owns and operates a 100-cow dairy with his wife Sue and their three children Heidi, 18, Heather, 16, and Keith, 12, north of Sandy Lake. They purchased the farm from Dale’s parents in 1980 and expanded the operation in March 2005 when they moved 40 cows from the stanchion barn to the new facility.

Kepner and his wife contemplated many options before the expansion. At first they thought they would expand a little by building a free stall barn for the cows and reconfiguring the old barn for a flat parlor.

As they visited other farms with a variety of milking and dairy cattle housing systems, they considered other options. Kepner took advantage of the advisors who regularly visit his farm as he contemplated making this major change in their operation. The nutritionist, accountant, veterinarian, loan officer and others all were consulted as he and his wife worked through the process of deciding how to make the farm more efficient and more profitable.

When the final decision was made, they built a four-row, free-stall barn with a modern milking parlor. Kepner and his one employee can get all the milking and barn chores done in about two and a half hours. He is pleased with the new facilities. His cows apparently like it as well since the herd average for milk production has increased from 22,000 -23,000 to 26,000 pounds of milk per cow per year.

Kepner greeted visitors in the milking parlor of his family’s modern dairy operation during a field day Aug. 2. Participants had an opportunity to tour the Kepner facilities and ask Kepner questions about his operation.

The tour was part of the “Open Forums and Dairy Tours,” organized by the Center for Dairy Excellence, a program of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

The event highlighted the center’s initiatives and provided the opportunity for feedback on key dairy issues. John Frey, the center’s executive director, explained how the center is working to increase milk production in the state as well as profitability for dairy producers.

Harold Curtis, Warren, a member of the Pennsylvania Dairy Task Force, explained some of the efforts of the task force and the initiatives that have been put in place to help dairy producers.

This meeting was one of six similar sessions on dairy farms across the state.